The Underwater Welder

A NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER!

One of Amazon's Top 10 Graphic Novels of 2012!

Amazon.ca's #1 Best Graphic Novel of 2012!

Discover the triumphant new graphic novel from the author of Essex County.

"The most spectacular episode of The Twilight Zone that was never produced. I really, really care about the people in this story... And I can pretty much guarantee you will too." -- From the introduction by Damon Lindelof (LOST, Star Trek, Prometheus)

"With The Underwater Welder, Jeff Lemire has created a moving, brilliant, and fiercely original work about loss, longing, and love. Full of piercing moments that will stay with you for long after you've finished reading, The Underwater Welder is a testament to the basic truth that down in the depths or up on land, there's nothing more haunting and wondrous than the human heart. A masterpiece of visual storytelling." -- Scott Snyder (Batman, Swamp Thing, American Vampire)

"Lemire’s stylized art and inventive panel structure is the perfect vehicle for his well-told story, and the tale’s poignant moments make the moments of desolation even more heart-wrenching... A beautiful, moving, wholly satisfying story about fatherhood and growing up." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"[Lemire] has not lost his ability to pack an emotional wallop." -- George Gustines,The New York Times

"The Underwater Welder... is all kinds of wonderful. Buy it. You will wet yourself with tears, your brain will spin from masterful storytelling, and you will love it." -- Jeff Jensen, Entertainment Weekly

"Wise and moving... these pages are poignant and masterful, and represent some of the very best work [Lemire]'s ever done." -- Glen Weldon, NPR

"The Underwater Welder is one of the most haunting, arresting, and unforgettable books of the last year -- make that of the last ten years... an otherworldly, beautiful, and heartwarming story that transports the reader to a place unlike any other. An emotional and moving work of graphic literature that compels the medium forward and the reader further down into the deep." -- John Parker, ComicsAlliance

"The Underwater Welder is an early contender for the year's best comic book... a richly-detailed story with characters that are all deeply flawed and undoubtedly human... once you pick it up you'll wish it never ended." -- Jason Serafino, Complex

“This vividly entertaining and illuminating graphic novel by Jeff Lemire represents a synthesis of all his best past achievements, and points the way toward broad new horizons for this talented young artist.” -- Paul Di Filippo, The Barnes & Noble Review

"Haunting... Underwater Welder is just the right blend of action and abstraction, and greatly enhanced by Lemire's ability to signal movement, time and distance through clever arrangement of his panels on the page." -- Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing

"A spectacularly unpredictable reading experience... a roughly 220-page tour de force with enough emotional resonance that you might find yourself wiping away a single tear while closing the book’s final page. Thus far, this is my favorite original graphic novel of the year." -- Erik Norris, IGN

"Beautiful... Lemire’s command of pacing and his ability to come up with just the right image at just the right moment are a wonder." -- Noel Murray, The AV Club

"Like all of Lemire's work, [The Underwater Welder] packs an emotional gut punch that hits you when you're not expecting it. It's sure to stand as one of the year's best books in any medium." --Ryan Hamm, Under the Radar

"Lemire is at the top of his game here... The Underwater Welder is the story of consciously choosing your life’s direction and running with wild abandon and joy toward it." -- Jenny Christopher Randle, New York Journal of Books

WARNING: CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE.

As an underwater welder on an oilrig off the coast of Nova Scotia, Jack Joseph is used to the immense pressures of deep-sea work. Nothing, however, could prepare him for the pressures of impending fatherhood. As Jack dives deeper and deeper, he seems to pull further and further away from his young wife and their unborn son. Then one night, deep in the icy solitude of the ocean floor, something unexplainable happens. Jack has a mysterious and supernatural encounter that will change the course of his life forever.

Equal parts blue-collar character study and mind-bending mystery, The Underwater Welder is a graphic novel about fathers and sons, birth and death, memory and reality, and the treasures we all bury deep below the surface.

Essex County

This critically-acclaimed graphic novel was recently chosen as one of Canada Reads’ Top 5 Essential Canadian Novels of the Decade! It is also the winner of the American Library Association’s Alex Award, the Doug Wright Award, and the Joe Shuster Award. And here's a brand new printing!

"A rich tapestry ... Mr. Lemire infuses his characters with vivid details that make them burst to life." -- George Gene Gustines, The New York Times

"Jeff Lemire's Essex County trilogy represents one of the most remarkable recent achievements in indie comics: three interlocking graphic novels about the mysteries and melancholy of a small Canadian farming community, rendered in a distinctive style and turned out surprisingly quickly." -- The AV Club

"Essex County is a tremendous achievement ... This heartfelt piece of graphic literature surpasses its form to stand as an enduring example of the finest in Canadian literature." -- from the introduction by Darwyn Cooke

"The subtle inter-weaving of Jeff Lemire's Essex County Trilogy is brilliant and constantly surprising. The cumulative impact left a lump in my throat." -- Jeff Smith, creator of Bone and RASL

"These three books on Canadian lives are individually striking, and cumulatively stunning." -- Paul Gravett, author of Graphic Novels: Stories to Change Your Life

"This is the comics medium at its best." -- Booklist (from one of three starred reviews)

Where does a young boy turn when his whole world suddenly disappears? What could change two brothers from an unstoppable team into a pair of bitterly estranged loners? How does the work of one middle-aged nurse reveal the scars of an entire community, and can anything heal the wounds caused by a century of deception?

Set in an imaginary version of Jeff Lemire’s hometown, ESSEX COUNTY is an intimate study of an eccentric farming community, and a tender meditation on family, memory, grief, secrets, and reconciliation. With the lush, expressive inking of a cartoonist at the height of his powers, Lemire draws us in and sets us free. -- a 512-page softcover graphic novel with French flaps, 6 1/2" x 9", Diamond: JUN091069

"I have no doubt readers will set up their back issues to relive the entire tale once more after closing this issue, while those who came late to the story will undoubtedly seek out the entirety. This series has been unique and heralded as such, but "Sweet Tooth" #40 is, quite simply, the best single-issue story in the story of the boy with antlers."